


drown and bury

by qBox



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/strange fake
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Other, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 17:51:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20430017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qBox/pseuds/qBox
Summary: “What if I won’t show up?” he thought out loud. “Maybe I should just... not.”A beat of silence followed, and he almost thought Enkidu had left him altogether, but then their voice came back again, just as soft and sweet.“I would appreciate it if you would come.”(Alternatively: Gil drinks to avoid the issue)





	drown and bury

**Author's Note:**

> It's been ages since I finished something but I ended up writing a short gilkidu thing fueled by all my feelings.  
Hope it'll be to someone's enjoyment at least!

“You drink too much,” said Enkidu as he opened the third bottle of wine for the evening. His hands were unsteady, but his mind wasn’t the delightful blur he longed for, not yet. Perhaps they were right - he did drink too much. He’d managed to fuck up his tolerance levels.

“I’m not drunk yet,” he said, as though it answered anything, and decided to forego a glass altogether and just drink from the bottle directly.

“You are already,” Enkidu insisted, their voice rising an octave like it would when they were annoyed with him. “You can barely walk straight! How are you going to be alright tomorrow?”

He didn’t answer, stepping across clothes and thrown or lazily dropped stuff through the living room on the way to the balcony. Cold air would do him good, probably.

“Gil,” they tried again. “You know what day tomorrow is, don’t you?”

“Why do you think I’m drinking?” Gil bit back, taking a swig more out of anger than anything. “I don’t want to go.”

With the night air biting his skin and the stone floor of the balcony under his bare feet, the shiver that went through him was as involuntary as it was unstoppable. It wasn’t the right time. The chill of autumn didn’t fit the occasion. It should have been summer, warm and wonderful, and it should have been the following year. Or the one after. Or the one after that. Or hell, never.

“I know you don’t,” Enkidu said, and as they leaned on the balcony railing he did the same, staring out across the bustling city. He could hear cars far below his penthouse, could hear the distant noise of people chattering in the night. The wind took most of the sounds into its empty howl. “But I’d like it if you came.”

Their voice was soft, solemn in a way, and he wanted to turn around and pull them into his arms. Instead he took another big swig of his wine, eyes trying to follow the pin pricks of a plane in the distance. It was hard to, when his vision was swimming.

“What if I won’t show up?” he thought out loud. “Maybe I should just... not.”

A beat of silence followed, and he almost thought Enkidu had left him altogether, but then their voice came back again, just as soft and sweet. 

“I would appreciate it if you would come.”

Of course they would. The occasion was for them, after all. That didn’t mean it was one he had ever wanted to experience. He didn’t want to think about it. More wine. More staring down towards the insect-sized cars and people.

“What if I came directly to you instead?” He asked it out loud but even voicing the thought was terrifying, his hands shaking so much that he spilled red wine next to his mouth and down his throat. It would be easier, in a way, to do that. He wouldn’t have to accept anything. Wouldn’t have to be alone again.

“Don’t you dare,” Enkidu said. “If you do, I’ll never talk to you again.”

He closed his eyes, hard around the hot and painful ache in them.

“I’d punch you, too,” Enkidu added. A giggle followed their words. “And I’m probably still stronger than you. You’d just have to take it.”

Gil smacked the bottle down on the banister, the sound of hard glass against harder stone reverberating into the night.

“I already have to take this fucking situation!” he hissed out, voice cracking as he did.  _ Don’t think about it _ , he told himself. He wondered if the bottle had broken. Would be so damn inconvenient, if it had. He’d have to go get a new one. Start from the top again.

“Gil,” Enkidu said, gentle soul that they were. “Go to bed. Sleep this off.”

“But I can’t sleep,” he whispered. “I fucking can’t. I keep thinking about...”

About Enkidu so pale against the paler fabric. About the way their fingers had been entangled with his as they told him, as they talked for hours on end. About the thing he didn’t want to think about. More wine. The bottle, through a miracle, was still mostly whole, save for some minor cracks where rare droplets of red seeped out and stain his sleeve.

“I know.”

“What if, after tomorrow, we won’t be able to talk again?” he asked, turning the bottle in his hands. His voice was beginning to sound slurred even to his own ears. “What if I—”

“We’re not really talking as it is,” Enkidu reminded him, indoors now, urging him to follow. “It’s not going to be that big of a difference. Afterwards, you’ll be right as rain. You just have to come see me, first.”

He did follow, closing the balcony door with arms that were weary more from the thoughts he was forced to think than from the drowsiness of alcohol in his system. He kicked an old bottle out of the way, saw it crack against the wall and shatter. The apartment looked tragic, even to him.

“At this rate you’ll be an alcoholic before the month ends,” Enkidu said. Or warned?

“Do you know that kind of stuff now too?” he scoffed.

“You know it too,” they pointed out and they weren’t wrong. He wasn’t stupid - he knew how much he had been drinking since then. Perhaps he had been actively drinking to ruin himself? Perhaps it was just to dull the pain.

He put the leaking bottle in a nearly full trash can, and dropped himself into his couch.

“Any place is good, I suppose,” Enkidu mused. “How long has it been since you slept in your bed?”

“How long has it been since you did?” he asked back, but his words came out weird and uneven. He could hear them sigh, and when he closed his eyes he felt their fingers comb carefully through his hair.

“As long as you sleep on your side, anywhere is fine. Don’t go choking on me.”

Gil groaned in response, something indistinguishable, and reached up to keep the hand close to himself, but he missed and instead covered his eyes with his entire arm.

“Sweet dreams, Gil,” Enkidu said, gently.

He had none.

When he woke up in the morning, it was by his caretaker bursting into the pent house and wrangling him both out of his stained clothes, into the shower and back into something clean and new once he’d dried. His mouth tasted as dry as it felt, but it didn’t matter. He felt numb inside as they travelled to the destination, stared right ahead like a person that had seen hell and come back.

He looked at Enkidu’s face where they lay and couldn’t take in that it truly was them.

He watched the coffin be lowered into the ground, and the only thing he could think of was how quiet it’d be at home if it also meant that the Enkidu in his mind was buried with the real thing. 


End file.
